First published 2014
After his girlfriend leaves him, an unnamed New Yorker flees to Dubai and accepts a peculiar position as "family officer" to the wealthy, unpredictable Batros family. The desert metropolis reinvents itself as a futuristic paradise around him, but he cannot escape what he calls the "doghouse," a persistent sense of guilt that follows him through every mundane activity. Whether he checks his email, uses the bathroom, or goes scuba diving, he feels trapped by an inescapable sense of wrongdoing. He navigates his strange new role serving his capricious employers while battling this psychological prison. The protagonist's internal struggle mirrors his external displacement in a city built on artificial dreams. O'Neill crafts a story that examines moral confusion in our interconnected world, blending humor with the character's genuine anguish as he searches for meaning in both his professional duties and his persistent sense of culpability.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, internal-struggle
Setting: Dubai, New York
Period: 21st-century
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